Dilemma

1. You want respect as an individual.
2. You claim you want respect for other individuals.
3. You know that no one has yet found a way to provide complete individualism for all.

 
You have a dilemma. In the extreme, total individualism would mean anarchy, and you don’t want that because anarchy, if it does anything, jeopardizes individuals, maybe you. So, you think there is some compromise, some cross between imposing rules on individuals while protecting some of their freedoms. But no one has ever truly found that compromise though many have tried.
 
Enter Plato. He started us on the path of thinking about the role of society and its conflict with the individual. In some ways, that path of thinking leads all Westerners back to Greece and Athens, where democracy—and, thus, the elevation of the individual—was born, but where Plato saw its potential flaws in the mismanagement of his times.
 
True democracy in which everyone has an equal say is akin to mob rule at times. We see it today in condemnations on social media, condemnations grown in ignorance of all the facts and based on hints and suppositions, on predeterminations, and in molded minds. Were he alive today, Plato would see in the destruction of individuals by Internet trolls the same kind of demos that condemned Socrates to death. Think about it. Not only Socrates, but Christ, also. Are Internet trolls different in kind from those who yelled in unison, “Crucify Him”?
 
So, Plato, not knowing he anticipated social media more than two millennia in his future, devised a social order, comprising the philosophers, the warriors, and the producers (artisans), and rejected the idea of true democracy in which everyone has an equal say in government. Makes some sense, or, at least, it did to him, and obviously, to America’s founding fathers, it also made some sense as they fashioned a representative government. When everyone has a voice, cacophony is usually the result. Historical examples abound, and the current population of Internet trolls is our contemporary example.
 
Following Plato’s advice partly unconsciously as an extension of Greek thought, theoretically, but not precisely, the founders decided the country needs (Should I say “wise”?) leaders to guide its protectors and the citizens who make and transfer stuff. The representatives, Plato’s “philosophers,” are the filter, supposedly, that keeps mob rule in check and tempers the demos’ desires of the moment.
 
But there’s a hitch in the plan that affects all within his ideal society. Plato didn’t want individuals to have complete control over their lives; rather, he wanted the State, via the philosopher/rulers to make major decisions, such as who could or could not reproduce. Shades of twentieth-century eugenics! Shades of 20th-century communism! Shades of the one-child policy of China, state-run child communes in the Soviet Union, and the death of the traditional family unit! Plato said all this would elevate individuals, but, in truth, it puts their personal growth aside except in service to the state. The Athenian was arguing for a Spartan rule!
 
If you were born in the Occident, you probably “think Greek” in math, in logic, in literary expression, and in philosophy. Westerners just can’t shake the influence of ancient Greece and, in particular, the influence of Plato and Platonists. Westerners are attuned to elevating the products of their frontal cortexes because of Plato’s refinements. Yet, arguably the greatest Greek thinker—one could argue for his student Aristotle, of course—seems, to me, to have thought little about the practical consequences of his ideal State, consequences that survivors who endured the rise of Fascism, Nazism, and Communism well understand. I say that because I see links between the products of socialism and Marxism and Plato’s Republic.    
 
Plato lived long before science (empiricism) entered the human sphere. Unlike his reasoned approach, the methodology of science is experimental. We can “reason” as many utopias as we wish, but, alas, the proof is in the experiment. And so far, all attempts to put Plato’s ideal State (or Republic) into effect have produced null results. Whenever the State takes control of individual lives, individuals become expendable, as they became expendable by the millions under Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany. There seems to be no compromise position: Elevating the State means devaluing the individual except in his or her service to the State. Plato reasoned and believed that the overseeing State would somehow enhance individualism, but reasoning and believing aren’t the same as experimenting. Again, we’ve run the experiments at the cost of too many disrupted and murdered lives. *
 
Yet, today, there are those who propose once again adopting a utopian image as a model State. Karl Popper called such a State “a metaphysical dream…married to a cruel reality.” * Popper, if you recall, is the guy who framed the fundamental test of science: Falsifiability. If what one does is falsifiable under further testing, then it is scientific. If there is no possible method by which one can falsify, then no objective science is performed. In looking at Marxism in particular, Popper said the political philosophy had adopted an “immunizing strategy.” That is, there is no discernible way to challenge the system. It is assumed to be workable. Its failings are ignored as irrelevant anomalies. It is immunized against threats like some Socrates or Christ that might call its efficacy into question.
 
And so, as we see today, those who would propose the adoption of a metaphysical dream, i.e., a utopian world in which everyone is equal and all wealth equally distributed, have established an immunizing strategy. Who, they appear to argue, can be against helping those in need?  Who, they ask, wants a lopsided society in which a few people hold most of the wealth? There is no falsifiability to their proposed utopian solution. Rather, they offer only an emotional appeal that ignores the empirical evidence of history. They are Platonists in regard to their metaphysical dream society without realizing they are. They are thinking Greek. They are using reason in the absence of or in contradiction to the experiments that have been run and the tests of falsification that history has applied.
 
One of the problems we face when we put everything in the hands of the State is the demise of charity. In fact, even more: The demise of morality. Individuals might have little to no motivation to help when everyone knows the State will come along to lend a hand. In the minds of those under State control, all problems become State problems; all problems require State solutions. “They” (an impersonal State entity) will fix “it” (whatever the problem is).
 
Plato assumed that his ruling class, the philosophers, would be wise leaders. He seems to have failed to recognize that those same “philosophers” would also be drawn from a class of imperfect beings. Have you ever met the perfect person, the person without some failing? Have you ever met one who has acted on purely rational grounds without the slightest unconscious bias?
 
That’s why I started this with statements about individualism. You want respect as an individual, and you claim to respect the individualism of others. But under any overriding State system, individualism gives way to collectivism of some sort, even moral collectivism. Eventually, the anonymous State condemns a Socrates or Christ.
 
Yes, in a society grown so large that Plato could not have imagined its population, some collectivism under overseers seems necessary and some decision for the many requires some decision against the few. Got a natural disaster? Look to FEMA. Got a problem with gang violence? Look to the police force. Got a problem with too many drug-related deaths? Someone in the government will solve the problem. Think the world is warming? You know the government is working on it. Right?  
 
What value do you prefer? One inherent in your very being? Or, one granted by the auspices of a presumed benevolent, albeit metaphysical State?
 
 
*Want some sense of scale to frame the history of such governments? Then read Rummel, R. J. Death by Government. London and New York. Routledge, 1994. p. 9. Rummel has data that show 169,198,000 people were murdered in the last century under socialist, fascist, and communist rule.